Author Archives: Paul Dagostino, Arizona Capitol Times correspondent

When Rep. Russ Jones moved into his office in the Arizona House of Representatives, his predecessor, Rep. Jim Carruthers, told him to beware of the “trains” that he could see, but perhaps would not hear coming.

The time, effort and money required to upkeep a home that normally would have been put in by the homeowner shifts to the bank when occupants desert their house. Lenders have to pay to clean up their sometimes-trashed properties to get them ready to sell. These properties, which will sell at a drastically lower price than when they were new, are putting a great strain on those institutions’ profitability, which affects their ability to make new loans.

A state commission is poised to start drawing new congressional and legislative districts for use in elections in the coming decade, with some initial but tentative signs already pointing to significant changes across the state's political landscape.

Five years ago, ICAN, a charitable nonprofit in central Chandler, was experiencing tremendous growth, offering after school, parenting and family programs to lower income residents. But the expanding organization had a problem.

Maressa Curran has lived with type 1 diabetes for 21 years. At age 23, she can care for herself now, but it hasn’t always been that way. Attending school in the mid-1990s, she found little support for diabetic students because awareness and diagnosis of the disease, especially in children, was lacking.